I just came back from my first ever trip to Seattle.  It was rainy for most of the trip but since I grew up in Hilo, I did not mind.  When the sun came out though, it was beautiful.

 So we land in Seattle and arrived at the hotel.  The first thing that we notice is our bed is a sleep number bed.  Yay!  I think I eventually settled on a number closer to 80 and my girlfriend used a number closer to 60 I think.  

**Warning about these beds.  If the two sides of the bed have dramatically different numbers, rolling from the high side to the low side can feel pretty weird.  I do think that my back felt better after a couple of days sleeping on this bed though.

One day on the trip, we drove out to Portland.  It was a pretty long drive but I liked it.  It is a scenic drive.  Much more scenic than when I drove from Vegas to L.A.

The photo here is a pic of the exit sign to Aberdeen.  I did not get to pay homage to Kurt Cobain by visiting the memorial they setup near the home that he was living in, but I did get to take a photo of the exit to his hometown of Aberdeen.  

I DID manage to see Bruce Lee and Brandon Lee's grave.  It was kind of hard to find but if you follow the information on http://www.seattle-tourist.com/bruce-lee-grave.html you should be able to find it.

One thing that kind of disappointed me was when we went to Portland.  Since Portland is considered the microbrew capital of the world, I was hoping to see microbrews on every corner.  Well that is NOT the case.  They are farther apart then that.  

We visited the Alameda Brewhouse (http://www.alamedabrewing.com).  They have a lot of beers here and all were good.  The food is also pretty good here too.

 This is a photo of their tasting beers.  They have all the popular styles of beer that we are familiar with and they also had a garlic flavored beer too.  

And this is 40 seconds later after I challenged my friend to drink all of the tasting beers in less than 45 seconds.

I particularly liked their Black Bear XX Stout.  It was clean and refreshing.  None of their beers had the feel that alcohol or flavoring was added to the beer.  

We also did some drinking in Seattle.  We went to a retro and hip bowling alley and we also went bar hopping.  It was fun and the people in Seattle were really friendly.  Needless to say, I got pretty wasted and don't remember much of the later part of the night.  I DO remember taking a blurry pic of a hotdog we got from a sidewalk cart.  The hotdog had cream cheese and grilled onions.  I know it sounds different, but it was really good.

 One of the days we were out in Seattle, we decided to go fishing.  We went to Dash Point.  We didn't catch anything but it was a good non-touristy thing to do.  I saw a seal, jellyfish, and a seagull poop on the pier while flying.  It was a fun time.  Its weird how I live in Hawaii, haven't picked up a fishing pole in at least 2 years, and the first time I fish again is in Seattle.

 A panoramic view of the beach and pier.  The water here is super flat.

 We had to do the obligatory visit to Pike's market.  The one thing I remember the most is the gum wall.  The story I heard about this place is that the comedy club that this wall fronts does not allow gum so people started sticking it to the wall.  Unfortunately, I didn't have any gum to add to the wall.  

 So that is the overview of my most recent trip to Seattle and Portland.  I am so grateful that Hawaiian Airlines had posted those cheap fares so many months ago.  My girlfriend is also happy because she got to buy all of the stuff you see here.